I'm still firmly in the camp that GM and Chrysler need to offer a better product to solve the problem.
No disagreement on the better product part; but I think there's more to it than that. The US "system" (for lack of a better word) regarding the automobile industry needs a complete overhaul. And by complete, I don't mean just their business model. Their
thinking has to change; 'both' sides (the idea of which should be the first to go) both company
and union / workers. Until an industry is in place that sees itself differently from their purpose outwards; they will always be second-rate to industry leaders such as Toyota. There is no way, by any stretch of my imagination, that I can envision GM, Chrysler, Ford, ...
any US automaker being involved, much less leading, research such as this article reports:
http://www.physorg.com/news165487826.html"(AP) -- Toyota Motor Corp. says it has developed a way of steering a wheelchair by just detecting brain waves, without the person having to move a muscle or shout a command.
...
... Research into mobility is part of Toyota's larger strategy to go beyond automobiles in helping people get around in new ways...
... Japanese rival Honda Motor Co. is also working on a system to connect the monitoring of brain waves with mechanical moves...
...Neither Honda nor Toyota said it had any plans to turn the technology into a product for commercial sale as each said they are still developing the research."